About

On 30 June 2011, the Borderland Foundation and the Centre Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations organizes the European Agora, a special event to be held under the auspices of UNESCO, connected with the Polish Presidency of the European Union and Miłosz Year.

Time: 30 June 2011, the centennial of Czesław Miłosz’s birth. Krasnogruda will become a meeting place for the lovers of the Noble Prize Winner’s art from around the world. The event will take place on the eve of the inauguration of the Polish presidency of the EU Council. The life and thought of the author of Native Realm correspond to the challenges facing us today: “Bridging Europe” in the way that will enable the growth of the “connective tissue” (Miłosz) on the new borderlands of cultures, languages and nations.

Venue: Krasnogruda is situated in one of the most charming corners of this part of Europe, right on the Polish-Lithuanian border. Its rise commands a panoramic view on the unpolluted, post-glacial landscape of hills, lakes and forests that stretch further, over the border, into the neighbouring Russia (Oblast Kaliningrad), Lithuania, Belarus and Poland. It is the location of a manor with a spacious park, the former property of Czesław Miłosz’s family.

Context: Borderland, on the twentieth anniversary of its activities is about to launch a novel venture: one that is innovative and at the same time deeply rooted in the Jegiellonian heritage of building bridges between people and cultures. The International Dialogue Centre in Krasnogruda will become a unique, on a European scale, institution dedicated to the research and popularization of the craft of the international dialogue on the world’s borderlands, the first step on the road to create the Pedagogical Province of Bridge Builders.